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Besides amazing landscapes, one of the unique features of Iceland is the Icelandic horse. This breed is a small but hardy horse that was thought to be brought over between 860 and 935 AD by Norse settlers from Scandinavia. They were developed from ponies and molded over centuries by selective breeding and natural selection due to Iceland’s cold climate. In order to avoid the degeneration of the stock, Icelandic parliament passed laws in 982 AD banning the import of horses into the country. Thus the Icelandic horse has now been pure bred for over 1000 years.
While visiting Iceland we had several opportunities to interact and play with these horses. They are extremely friendly and docile and at the first sight of people are quick to come over and play. If only I could take one back home! :)
Besides the buzzard, the kestrel is probably the most common bird of prey in the Netherlands, and you can actually always see them exhibiting religious behavior somewhere above a field where their favorite snack is scurrying around.
I once sat for a while watching a relaxed kestrel sitting in a tree quietly looking around, and then outwitting a mouse. It doesn't seem like a hard life to me.
I have hundreds of photos of kestrels (375 to be exact), and this is probably the last(?). I finally have a view on his upper body in flight and that is the most beautiful part, a beautiful pattern.
Besides doing the first Smile on Saturday, this will also be the first of the 100X project. This year 100 different shots of Smoke with color, light, texture modifications.
Besides the ability to sooth your throat, quench your thirst, and relief the heat, the drink also provides some health benefits such as improving appetite & digestion and possibly inhibiting the buildup of lactic acid in the body.
How many times do I have to try to tell you
That I'm sorry for the things I've done
But when I start to try to tell you
That's when you have to tell me
Hey... this kind of trouble's only just begun
I tell myself too many times
Why don't you ever learn to keep your big mouth shut
That's why it hurts so bad to hear the words
That keep on falling from your mouth
Falling from your mouth
Falling from your mouth
Tell me
Why...
Why...
I may be mad
I may be blind
I may be viciously unkind
But I can still read what you're thinking
And I've heard is said too many times
That you'd be better off
Besides...
Why can't you see this boat is sinking
(this boat is sinking this boat is sinking)
Let's go down to the water's edge
And we can cast away those doubts
Some things are better left unsaid
But they still turn me inside out
Turning inside out, turning inside out
Tell me
Why...
Besides my trip to the Dolomites I made two other trips in my own country. One trip was for two weeks to make pictures of the heather that was -thanks to the wet summer- abundant this year.
I already posted two of them (www.flickr.com/photos/115540984@N02/51464699515/in/datepo..., www.flickr.com/photos/115540984@N02/51557517326/in/datepo...).
This image I took with my drone, and gives a nice impression how abundant it was.
Besides our sim-exploring times...
we love to enjoy our relax time to....
escape from reality as some might call it...
We all need it.... yes indeed.... Even you !
Poem by ~ Kit ~
* smiles...
Look for a new wildlife animal in the water 👅
and yes...I'm wearing a bikini !
You can have fun and floating time at Le Monde Perdu
La plage de Portiragnes a accueilli le 4ème Festival du Vent où se réunit l'élite des freestylers européens.
Le ciel de Portiragnes se para alors d'une multitudes de cerfs volants de toutes les tailles, de toutes les formes et de toutes les couleurs!
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Seit einigen Jahren findet am Strand von Portiragnes in Südfrankreich im September ein 'Windfestival' statt. Der Himmel ist dann geschmückt mit Drachen aller Größen, Formen und Farben.
Es trifft sich dort auch die Elite der Europäischen Freestyler zu einem Wettbewerb. Ein großartiges Erlebnis!
___________
A great event in Portiragnes, Southern France, is the 'wind festival'.
It takes place every year in September, and the sky is decorated with kites of different sizes, colors and forms.
Besides, the Elite of the European 'freestylers' participates separately in an interesting contest.
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Many thanks for your kind visit and comments, dear friends.
•*¨*•♫♪¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪¸¸.•*¨*¨*•.•*¨*•♫♪•*¨*•♫♪¸¸•♫♪•*¨*•♫♪¸¸
Copyright 2019: Elke Wittmann
-from my Archives-
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Besides birds, butterflies were a main subject this year. I learned that if you to go to their sleeping places before sunrise, they are motionless and won't fly away even if you get very close.
Besides its importance as a fragrance, lavender is considered calming to those with nervous tension. Lavender oil is sometimes rubbed into the temples for head pain, added to bath water for an anxiety-reducing bath, or put on a cotton ball and placed inside a pillowcase to treat insomnia. Lavender oil also works as an antiseptic making it a natural treatment option for skin disorders (sourced from HowStuffWorks).
Macro Mondays: Remedy
Thank you all for your views, faves and/or comments! It’s greatly appreciated! Happy MM! :-)
I found these cute tiny wildflowers near the woods in our neighborhood. They were supported by a decomposed branch and green leaves. I was happy that I could shoot them from a good angle to exhibit their trumpet shape. Besides, the sunlight enhances their natural beauty; how lovely!
What I like about Kawasaki, besides his beautiful designs of course ;-), is the fact that he is an excellent teacher.
He divided his origami-book(s) into lessons, which increase in difficulty. You can skip it of course, but if you never have folded a model before, it is highly recommended that you do this anyway to get used to the way of diagramming and get some practice.
Often the end results are also very worthwhile, at least that's my opinion.
Like this result of the first part of Lesson 3: a beautiful abstract rose (that is the rose on the left. On the right is the same rose, but at the bottom a piece of the paper is already folded in. It becomes smaller and appears rounder.)
I put them both in a traditional container ('Masu box'), by way of abstract leaves. Nice as a table decoration!
I changed both 'Masu boxes' have a bit. The traditional one is just a container with 4 straight sides.
Model: Origami Lesson 3: Development of a Rose
Design: Toshikazu Kawasaki
Diagrams in the book 'Origami Dream World - Flowers and Animals' by Toshikazu Kawasaki
Paper: both roses are folded from yellow tant paper 15x15cm.
Final size:
rose left: height 5cm
rose right: height 3cm
Looking toward Saint Michael along Rue Vaillant in Dijon France .Les Amis des Musées de Dijon is on the right side of the image. This was one of the few places in Dijon where there was enough space besides the Place de la Libération for capturing a good cityscape image.
Tootsie Roll lollipop, orange flavor.
Besides giving these away when Facebook tells me it's someone's birthday I've been looking for an opportunity to post here on flickr. I think you would agree that it's hard to just jump right out and post a pic of a lollipop without some kind of reason/introduction; after all, it is just a pic of a lollipop. I will say that this started out simple enough but trying to get the focus stack to work proved to be a real challenge. No matter what I did I couldn't get the image to align. After every try there was distortion (mostly due to the stick) so I would back up a bit but then it wouldn't align at all because it couldn't find enough pixels to align! I finally added more stuff in the frame and it worked, I cropped out the added items. Getting this to work became an obsession and I was bound and determined to make it work. In the end I won out and this is my lollipop photo, I offer it up for this week's theme and if by chance it's your birthday, I'm ahead of the game - Happy Birthday!
Nikon 55mm f/2.8 NIKKOR Micro, Focus stack.
"Looking close... on Friday!" and "Round in Vertical Photo".
Hair
↝ Hairbase A2 + Um Coque Pearl 〜 eBento Event 〜 Starts November 11th 〜 Raon Beauty
For Lelutka Evo, Lelutka EvoX, Genus, AK, Catwa Heads
28 Tones, Resize
Outfit
↝ Top & Jeans Shorts 〜 Osoka 〜 @ BIGGIRL Event 〜 Spirit
Fit for Maitreya, Legacy, Kupra, eBody Reborn
Top comes in 9 Colors + 2 Extra Colors
Shorts comes in 9 Colors + 2 Extra Colors, 5 Metal Colors
Jewelry
↝ Earrings 〜 Oprah 〜 @ Collabor88 〜 Piece Of Me
Earrings Rigged for Lelutka Evo X
3 Metal Options
Tattoo
↝ Britt Tattoo 〜 eBento Event 〜 Starts November 11th 〜 Juna
BOM, Omega, 4 Shades
2 Version: Colored, Black & White
Pose
↝ Chocolate Bar- Chocolatoo 〜 Lyrium
Static & Animated Holds- Color Change HUD
* More Info In Alexandra Sunny Styles*
While visiting Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore in Michigan's upper peninsula, besides the waterfalls in the park the visitor will want to visit the many waterfalls in the nearby surrounding area. This Au Train Falls is a series of 5-6 foot falls in a space of several hundred yards. This one is at the lowest point of the series . . . and some coloring in the stone slabs almost matches the autumn foliage.
All i want is to rest
Get to the beach and see
If the wind is still is strong
And it will be good to climb the rocks.
I know I do this to forget.
I let the wave hit me
And the wind is taking everything away.
Now it's so far
Seeing the horizon line distracts me
The our plans that I miss the most.
When we looked together in the same direction
Where are you now besides here inside of me?
We act right unintentionally.
It was only the wrong time
It will be difficult without you.
Because you was with me all the time
And when I see the sea
Is there anything that says
That life goes on and giving up is silly
Already that you are not here
What can I do
Is take care of me.
I want to be happy at least
Remember that the plan was we be well.
I miss you so so much!
I know I do this to forget.
I let the wave hit me
And the wind is taking everything away.
Besides the roses the poppy is one of the flowers that are capturing my imagination every year again. Over the time its getting more difficult to find new compositions and perspectives. Every year I tell to myself: Someting still must be possible.
Neben den Rosen gehört auch der Mohn zu den Blumen, die mich jedes Jahr aufs neue in Ihren Bann ziehen. Mit der Zeit wird es immer schwerer neue Kompositionen und Perspektiven zu finden. Ich denk mir jedes Jahr: irgendwas muss da noch gehen.
Lupine - lupin (Lupinu
Besides of its masterfully capability of catching raindrops (because of the tiny hairs that are covering all the leafs) I have a personal connection to lupins. I grew up with the most wonderful german sheeper dog named Dina. When we met first we both were still kids. I was 7 years and she was 8 weeks old. The time I spend with the dog belongs to my most wonderful childhood memories. As Dina died after 14 years, I buried her in our garden and sowed many different lupines on her grave, it was a sea of blossoms every summer. Everytime, I see one of those flowers, I have to think of it. Every time. Thank You Dina.
Außer, dass Lupinenblätter wahre Meister im Fangen von Regentropfen sind (weil ihre Blätter über und über mit kleinen Härchen bedeckt sind) habe ich persönlich noch eine ganz besondere Verbindung.zu diesen Blumen. Ich bin zusammen mit dem wundervollsten Deutschen Schäferhund aufgewachsen, sie hieß Dina. Als wir uns kennen lernten waren wir beide noch Kinder. Ich war 7 Jahre sie 8 Wochen alt. Die Zeit mit dem Hund gehört zu meinen schönsten Kindheitserinnerungen. Als Dina nach 14 Jahren verstarb, beerdigte ich sie in unserem Garten und sähte auf dem Grab ganz viele unterschiedliche Lupinen, im Sommer ein Blütenmeer. Daran muss ich denken, jedesmal, wenn ich eine dieser Blumen sehe. Jedesmal. Danke Dina.
I make this image public in the AVIF format (can be opened in the latest IrfanView, Chrome and Firefox): Link to AVIF in Google Drive
The AVIF image compression (in the HEIF container) is a very promising format as it provides good image quality in a very small package and is (in comparison to HEIC) free of any licenses. I hope Flickr as well as Google and Microsoft products will soon have full support for this innovation.
Besides the high compression efficiency the big advantage over JPEG is that a color depth per channel of 10 and even 12 bit is supported.
The AVIF is after the conversion always a little more saturated and the contrast seems to be higher. If this is a common thin with AVIF or just one of this certain encoder implementation (used in GIMP).
Besides standing stones there are several smaller stone circles around the moor as well.dating back to before the Pyramids. We loved Arran Island. There is great mystery surrounding them , how they got there and what they signified and how they were used, although most certainly for ritual and religious ceremony.
Please forgive me for not responding to all the wonderful comments lately. I am grateful to all my supporters. My verbal state is in lag as I walk this strange path of loss and grief.
For those who are interested, an extract from this afternoon's Journal entry.
"At 5 o'clock we were back on the road to Sousousvlei for the afternoon drive, along the way we saw Oryx and Ostriches. We stopped at dune number 45, I gave Ruby my Panasonic camera and she went off to take photos of wild flowers. I took close up shots of the sand dune and its environment.
Next we drove to dune number 47; this was a stunning landscape, especially in the afternoon light. We watched the sun set at dune 47, Ruby took photos of the sunset with one of my cameras, while I used another. Neither of us was interested in sharing drinks and nibbles, we were civil but an impossible gulf had opened between us.
I asked about taking a hot air balloon or a sightseeing flight the next morning. Ruby said I'd never get into the balloon basket and besides the next morning would be windy and unsuitable for ballooning. She was no longer interested in anything I wanted if I wasn’t interested in what she wanted me to do. She had also lost sight of the fact I was the client and she the guide. Her message was loud and clear.
Back at the camp we had Orix kebabs for dinner, tough as old leather and not at all tasty."
Besides eating ash tree leaves, these laurel sphinx caterpillars often key in on the leaves of cultivar lilac bushes. Notice the bright blue horn covered with tiny black spines on this one's behind - don't touch! This beautiful big green caterpillar will eventually turn into a large and powerful "hawk moth" that pollinates flowers that bloom at night.
"I am milk
I am red hot kitchen
And I am cool
Cool as the deep blue ocean
I am lost
So I am cruel
But I'd be love and sweetness
If I had you
I'm waiting
I'm waiting for you
I'm waiting
I'm waiting for you..."
Garbage: youtu.be/7LlfiBL0ED4
Besides being home to some of Iowa's rarer flora and fauna, Malanaphy Springs State Preserve has some of the coolest karst topography in the country. One of the highlights here if you like a long hike is Malanaphy Springs, seen here as it issues from a crack in the limestone cliff. Most people who carry a camera along take pictures of the very photogenic waterfall where this stream tumbles off a cliff into the Upper Iowa River, but this pure clear spring water caught my eye today. I know some of my friends and family are unable to venture out into nature right now, so I hope you enjoy the view.
This is my favorite lake between the ones I have visited in the north of Italy.
Why is the Lago di Braies my favorite?
A paradisiacal view with a beautiful contour in which we can see many trees and wildflowers in the relaxing pathway destined to the visitors.
A splendid color in the water reflecting, between other things, the majestic Dolomites still with some snow even in the Summer.
Besides this, a lovely little church and rustic boat house. How not to be enchanted with this scenery?
Besides me, a lot of Italian and Austrian tourists certainly will agree.
...kinda reminded me of a histogram. Besides a slight sharpening adjustment, border and name, this photo is untouched.
Besides conifer needles, I had to search far and wide to find some real green in nature to celebrate St. Paddy's Day, but I finally found the brave first wildflower blooming in the woods here in Winneshiek County for 2019. This hardy skunk cabbage plant has actually melted the pesky snow away from the soggy ground around its base.
It’s a bit like a country within a country here in Snaefellsnes. I could easily spend an entire trip mooching around, trying old stuff and new. Besides the blinking obvious, Kirkjufell and the Black Church of Budir there are waterfalls, beaches with sand in various shades of black, red or even traditional white (take your pick), epic roads across silent fjords, views to the north and the Westfjords, lone buildings, dunes, craters, lakes, twisted lava fields and plenty more. Oh yes, and if you’re lucky and arrive on a clear day, there’s a monstrous brute of a glacier, flanked with a white and blue ice cap that dominates the landscape from almost everywhere you go, reaching up to touch the very heavens. Tog or normal well balanced member of the public, there sure is a lot of stuff to keep you occupied on Snaefellsnes.
In the hostel, we’d got talking to Trevor, a veteran of several visits to the area who complained he’d never seen Snaefellsjokull. Some may ask, “how can you not see an enormous white lump, almost 1450 metres high that’s visible from Reykjavik on a clear day?” And the answer is in the last two words. “Clear day.” I’m sure the locals get to see the beast at regular intervals, but on our previous visit in 2019, the entire peninsula was painted in a drab grey sheet of gloom. Nothing doing. But this time around, on the second day of touring Snaefellsnes in a car with a back seat full of primed and loaded camera gear, we got lucky. Unfortunately for Trevor he’d gone north that very morning in search of the Aurora Borealis in the Westfjords. Mind you he found it, so I think he was happy in the end.
By now, we’d already stopped at two locations and made merry with the conditions. We didn’t get more than a couple of miles further through the day before coming to another unscheduled halt on top of a small mound of scrubby car park when the possibilities in front of us became apparent. No epic light in the middle of the day of course – that would come later – but while some images might work in mono, others seemed to offer themselves up in full glorious technicolour. And then we got to the lone church of Ingjaldsholl, close to Hellissandur at the edge of the map. And look who wasn’t bothering to hide behind the clouds? Yep, all fourteen hundred and forty-six metres of the beast, with a couple of interesting lumps and ridges in between for good measure. Who doesn’t love a glacier cloaked monster after all?
We were probably only here for twenty minutes, moving a couple of hundred yards from east to west over a patch of bare open ground as we tried to line up the elements, waiting for the sun to dapple the scene before us, whilst taking the utmost care not to tread on the moss. They really don’t like you walking on the moss in Iceland you know. It’s right up there with armed robbery and carjacking in the grand scheme of things. Not that we tested that out of course. You can’t take landscape photos when you’re locked in a cell, and when the trip is costing you something north of a hundred pounds a day even though you’re on the most stringent of budgets, you don’t want to be wasting any time being detained at the pleasure of the Icelandic Government.
Once again I found myself wondering at just how isolated so many of these simple and striking Lutheran churches are. Take this one for example, a mile out of both Hellissandur and neighbouring Rif. It’s not even placed directly in between them. I hope that in the days before cars, the locals had sturdy boots for those winter treks to morning prayers. And while Hellnar’s church may be surrounded by a handful of homes amid the tourist accommodation, Budir goes hand in hand with the only slightly less well known hotel of the same name. Not a house or farm in sight. Yet the village of Arnarstapi, a veritable metropolis in comparison to the rest of the settlements on the south west coast on Snaefellsnes, doesn’t have a church at all. Although it does have a fish and chip van, which depending on your belief system may or may not be far more important. At the end of the trip we visited Strandarkirkja, totally isolated by a thin thread of asphalt from the cluster of shacks that didn’t seem to be occupied by anyone at all. Still, they make for good subjects don’t they? And besides being dwarfed by the mighty Snaefellsjokull, this is the only one of them that was supposedly visited by Christopher Columbus. So the story goes (although historians aren’t of one accord on the subject), he spent a winter here fifteen years before his more famous adventure to check out the local intel on crossing the Atlantic. Leif Eriksson had made the voyage several hundred years earlier, and the Icelanders are well known for handing down stories from one generation to the next.
In writing this, I’ve just remembered that one of Iceland’s five prisons is right next to Kirkjufell. Not because I study such things in detail before choosing my holiday destinations of course. But if you take the single track road to the immediate west of the mountain to try and take pictures from another angle, you can’t help but be aware of the signs telling you which route not to follow unless you have plenty of time to spare and a very plausible explanation. I could have pointed the camera out of the window of my cell if we’d been sent there. Although I suppose they’d have confiscated it.
I wonder if Columbus took his resident landscape artist with him and got a sunset canvas of Kirkjufell in front of the waterfalls?
Besides all the amazing bird life around Nome, there's some amazing animals too. It's hard to believe these muskox are for real when you see them standing out on the arctic tundra. They are one of the lucky few Pleistocene megafauna species that survived after the most recent ice age ended. They graze on the tundra's abundant mosses, lichens, grasses and dwarf willows. Local residents visit willow thickets where the very fine and soft underfur from the muskox gets snagged, and they knit that "qiviut" into warm winter clothing. Muskox are famous for their defensive behavior, and when the herd feels threatened the adults form a ring around the calves with their heads and horns facing outward. I wouldn't want to try and enter that ring😄.
Besides fantastic fishing in the Upper Iowa River, you can also find some fabulous rocks if you spend some time looking on sand and gravel bars there. Many people collect agates and fossils as cool little keepsakes or souvenirs. The Lake Superior agate is about 1 billion years old while that spiraling gastropod snail is much younger at an age of 450 million years.